The Flash: Fastest Man Alive #13 is a comic book that features someone in red who usually runs very fast but is depowered and then killed. Since he’s not Barry Allen or Wally West, I’ve got nothing really invested in Bart Allen, the former Impulse, and this single issue does very, very little to make me care before slamming down on the Comics Character Reset Button. I’m sure there are people who love the character, though, and are holding vigils even as I type this.
Anyway, Tony Daniel is not an artist whose work I like, but he’s perfectly adequate for this. Marc Guggenheim’s script has a couple of really nice moments, but the suspension-of-disbelief meter was twitching a bit when a powerless Flash manages to stave off psychopathic criminals with super-awesome laser guns for ten minutes to save the world. What’s the point of your Freeze, Heat, or Lightning Rays if they can’t individually dispatch some schmuck? Oh, wait, it’s to make Allen look more heroic and the now-returned Wally West now has something to emo out over.
There’s some big brouhaha over how this was a “surprise” final issue and there’s going to be a return to the previous status quo. As it’s superhero comics, that’s par for the course and I can’t imagine anyone being particularly shocked or impressed. The Flash: Fastest Man Alive #13 is workmanlike, if distinctly non-thrilling superhero action.
The Highwaymen #1 is a competent, high-concept comic that reads like something that BOOM! or Markosia or the like would put out. This first issue is mostly setup for the series premise: a pair of professional couriers are (one still in the espionage game, the other retired) are reunited for one last gun-packed mission after fifteen years apart.
This is a very readable comic. Mark Bernardin and Adam Freeman’s script is nailed down tightly and opens up questions while clearly delineating what’s going on. Dialogue flows nicely (even if I think the character of McQueen tries a bit too hard to be British in that oh-yes-let’s-use-arse-again way) and the action sequences are handled deftly, moving along quickly while still giving readers the destruction porn that makes this sort of thing enjoyable.
I think this is the first time I’ve seen artist Lee Garbett’s work and I’m going to out and out praise it. He’s got a Dillon-esque knack for facial expressions and he’s got a strong sense of movement that makes those aforementioned action sequences zip along nicely.
Is there enough in this issue to justify $3 on its own? Yes, actually. If the rest of the series progresses this nicely, Wildstorm’s going to have another nice mainstream book to offer up to readers and/or Hollywood.
